The Thousands

I once went to a church in Orange County, California, with a drive-through Sunday service. Here, all the cheeseburger and root-beer-float guzzling folk could get their Communion, hear the day’s scripture and make their weekly donations without leaving the SUV. Genius!

In Oz however, we prefer our churches without the drive-through window and occasionally, with video art. Pioneering and prolific US video artist Bill Viola is coming to Australia, and his work will be on show at the MCA, the AGNSW, and another, more unorthodox venue…**From this week, St Saviour’s Church in Redfern will be transformed nightly into a space for two of Viola’s beautiful and eerie video/sound installations (both taken from his four-hour long piece, THE TRISTAN PROJECT).

It’s a perfect venue for his strange, ethereal and dreamlike moving images, which often have religious undertones. Definitely worth getting out of the car for.